


ParedMaria (a little town in Nevada)

by catboyeren



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Bondage, Christianity, Cowboy AU, M/M, Moonlight, Revisionist Western, Smoking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-25
Updated: 2020-11-20
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:47:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 16,196
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27196700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/catboyeren/pseuds/catboyeren
Summary: Erwin Smith is the sheriff of a town on the brink of anarchy, and he'll be damned before he lets the lawlessness of the Wild West affect his constituency. But when the Paredmaria Posse leaves a dreaded outlaw with eyes grey as a Minnesota winter stranded in the hills outside town, his lifelong values are thrown into question after jailing the mysterious gunslinger and finding he isn't half the villain the wanted posters make him out to be...
Relationships: Levi/Erwin Smith
Comments: 21
Kudos: 108





	1. the riviera raven

"You'd better come quick, Sheriff," out of breath, Deputy Zoë's trim figure heaved in the doorway of the town jail. The sun behind her was fast fading, casting an eerie jack-o-lantern glow into the dusty streets. Not many people liked to be out at night in the little town of Paredmaria, Nevada. And the ones who did weren't the kind of people you wanted to meet. Erwin Smith, the town sheriff, rose up from his knees where he had been praying behind his desk and tipped his sky-white hat to his trusted deputy. 

"Trouble outside of town?" 

Zoë nodded. Although Erwin did his best to keep the streets orderly, crime in nearby towns and sightings of outlaws in the hills had put his constituency on edge. The citizens were quick to judgement, and even quicker to their guns. Some of the men had taken to riding through the hills in a posse and tormenting anyone they came across: judging by the hollering Erwin could hear, faint as the nearest church's high noon bell, some poor soul had fallen prey to their fear and bloodlust. Without waiting for details, he marched out of the door, spurs clicking; his deputy darted out and brought him the reins of his horse. 

His duster was as faded as the sunset, but the golden star on his breast gleamed even in the dusk. It whipped around his tall, mighty figure as he mounted his horse and dug his heels into her sides, galloping across the plains. 

It was clear from the animal look in his quicksilver eyes, the way they darted from person to person, analytical, unafraid, that this man had been outnumbered before. His irises gleamed in the moonlight. The Paredmaria Posse were unsettled by their captive: they were used to screaming and begging, for people to bend to the will of their shotgun barrels. But this man, no taller than a prickly pear, lassoed on two sides and torn from his horse, looked at them with a challenging coldness. There was a soft thud as the leader of the posse, a studious type named Zeke, dismounted and approached the bound man on the ground. 

"Well, well. I've seen your face, stranger." He gestured to one of the other men, the brick-like Reiner atop his bulky stallion, who rifled through a bag full of wanted posters until he found one with eyes as unwavering as their prisoner's. He handed the faded page to Zeke. "Levi Ackerman. Did you know there's a five-thousand dollar bounty on your head, Shortstack? Dead _or_ alive." 

Levi shifted in the ropes biting into his black leather coat, sliding his sixgun discreetly into his palm. This bright-eyed clerk wasn't the first to try and collect on his head, and he was certain he wouldn't be the last. His gaze did not flicker. 

"Easier to bring a corpse to justice, wouldn't you agree, boys?" The posse broke into an uproar and Zeke cocked the hammer of his revolver, aiming it at the center of Levi's forehead. 

Levi's lips quirked up in a smile. Zeke's hand shook. Why wasn't he afraid? "Well, we'll have our fun with you first," he began to snarl in an attempt to make the small man react, but someone cried out suddenly:

"Shit, here comes the law!" 

Thunderous hooves kicked up a storm of dust on the horizon, and everyone could hear the sheriff's authoritative ' _hyah!_ ' as he urged onwards, pistol most likely drawn. Zeke scowled and reholstered his gun, making for his horse. It wasn't worth killing the sheriff or outing posse members to take out their repressed, sadistic urges on this sorrowful little outlaw. But that didn't mean he'd let him go. 

A gunshot rang out across the dessert.

Erwin could hear them up ahead making a run for it. There was no hope of catching them among the plateaus in the dessert yonder in the day, let alone when the only light around was the great eye of the moon. All he could do now was find what remained, and only then would he know what to do. Nonetheless, horrible predictions pooled in the forefront of his mind. Had they killed some damned traveler? Put a bullet in a strong man's chest and left his girl to mourn? Another unmarked grave close to the apricot grove. Another tragedy oozing into the city cistern. He pushed his horse with ragged breaths, his stormy blue eyes desperately scanning the horizon for a body. 

Over the next hill, by a jagged tree, long-dead from thirst, a dark, shaking lump dragged itself upright. Erwin hollered and slowed his horse to a canter. "Hey!" the tree swam up in his vision as if he were falling towards it, and the body at its base raised its head to meet his eyes as he leapt from the saddle, coat swinging, boots landing hard on the rocky ground. Ropes were tangled around legs, arms, which fought numbly, uselessly against them. They were so small-- a woman? Erwin hadn't thought the posse capable of such violence, but… no, the hard look in his thin eyes, those long hands clutching at his shoulder bleeding black, the dark, shaggy hair that stuck to his face with sweat. Erwin sucked in a breath. 

"The Riviera Raven." 

The outlaw coughed and groaned and kicked himself up and, even in the dark, Erwin realized he was attempting to draw his gun. He fell to his knees and snatched his wrist, perplexed. "Now's not a time for fighting, son. You've got a bullet in your shoulder." He'd seen this man's face on streetsides, on the wall of his office, on covered wagons full of bounty hunters: this was Levi Ackerman, the Riviera Raven, the man with eyes as cold as an unshot bullet. He was a robber and a runner, too good for a posse of his own, looting trains and taking banks as a one-man army. He was a gunslinger and if the rumors were true, he was the fastest one around. His head could buy an estate back east. Getting him like this, bloody and taken down, his horse nowhere to be seen-- well, Erwin Smith was not sanctimonious, but he was god-fearing, and he recognized that this was the sort of thing his god did to test him. There'd be no settling of Ackerman's bounty as long as he was in Erwin's custody. There would be a proper trial in a proper court.

"Not your son," Levi pulled at his wrist, still trying to use the tree to get back on his feet. There'd be no persuading him to come quietly, that was clear enough. Erwin frowned and shook his head. "Lord forgive me," he murmured, taking one end of the rope and pulling it tight. Levi muffled an indignant sound in his coat collar. "I'll fucking kill you, don't touch me--" Erwin pulled the bandana from Levi's neck, balled it, and pushed it past his lips-- earning an even angrier, though much quieter noise. "You're wasting your breath, friend, and we don't know how many you have left." 

Levi's eyes narrowed spitefully. 

Erwin bound the outlaw quickly, looping the rope around him like he was lacing his boots, and hefted his body up onto his horse. No more than a piece of luggage, a pack of rations. He removed his guns from his side holsters and stuck them in his saddlebag. With the small man face-up, wrists pinned beneath him and tied to the harness, Erwin straddled the mare. "Strugglin'll make it hurt more, Ackerman," he warned, before starting back towards Paredmaria proper, the outlaw jostling behind him. Yet, Erwin noticed, he didn't make a single sound of pain.

Deputy Zoë awaited them nervously. She spied the body on the back of the horse and her brow shot up, hands flying to her mouth. "Sheriff! Is he alive?" 

"Yes'm. Set up the back, he's got a bullet in him." 

He carried the helpless outlaw behind the jail to the back-- a little two-room apartment that the sheriff typically lived in. Most of the time he fell asleep at his desk. Still, it was a cozy place, perfect for late night card games and simple stove-cooked meals. There was a kitchen, the shelves lined with tin cups and a sloping sack of corn meal, brown jugs of drink, dried flowers. A big rug by the door and a bookshelf, mostly full, and a brass bed with the sheets expertly folded on top. Though it looked as impersonal as it could be, he and Zoë had passed many hours at the dining room table where Erwin now placed the bound man on his back. 

Zoë gasped. "Is that…?"

"It is." Erwin removed the bandana from his mouth and stuck it in his pocket without thinking. Levi didn't speak immediately, but he did make a point of turning his head and spitting vindictively on Erwin's floor. The sheriff ignored it, sliding his hands beneath Levi's tangled, uneven restraints. He loosened the knots and the ropes fell away, cleared by Zoë's quick fingers. She began to edge his coat off his shoulders, her eyes wide and sparkling. "I heard stories about the Sina Express! You outshot the Pinkertons by a _mile_ , that's what everyone said. They say you've got a God-given trigger finger, mister, but-- well, Erwin'd disagree," she laughed. 

Erwin undid the pearl buttons on Levi's shirt, shaking his head. "You'll have to forgive my deputy, she's got a lot of _ideas_ about outlaws." 

The raven looked between them both, stretching his fingers, a ghost of hurt lancing across his lips as Erwin's fingers brushed the edge of his bullet wound. The blood had stained his pinstriped, mountain-purple blouse. It was mud black now. "You do know… what dead or alive means… don't you? _Erwin_?" Levi asked breathlessly, throwing the name in with a hint of mocking that made the hairs on the back of Erwin's neck stand up. 

He cleared his throat. "Men who ain't suffered already don't do what you do, Ackerman, and I'm no reaper." 

"Everybody… suffers." 

Zoë walked around the head of the table, pouring apricot brandy on a handkerchief as she moved. "This is going to hurt!" she exclaimed, and pulled Levi's shirt back far enough that she could swipe the cloth against his wound. His back arched and he rose off the table an inch, but his face remained perfectly stoic but for an imperceptible gritting of his teeth. Erwin watched in fascination. Even he was partial to expressions of _pain_ , and he considered himself as tough as he was virtuous. The brunette scrubbed the blood off his skin in a circle. At its center, like a broken eye, was the bullet wound. It wasn't too deep. A quick, thoughtless shot, that just luckily missed the arteries in his arm. 

Really Erwin would rather help this son of a gun than let the Paredmaria Posse win, but he was far too ashamed of his pridefulness to say so. Instead, he continued to disarm the outlaw while Zoë tended to the bullet wound. The man had hunting knives hidden in each boot and on his upper thigh-- which, indecently, called for Erwin to ease his chaps down in order to reach-- and a pistol strapped to his back. His coat was lined with lockpicks and ammunition and small, unnoticeable weapons, hairpins and daggers. Each of these items, Erwin removed and lined up on the kitchen counter. He would make an inventory later. 

Outside, a great horned owl called. 

The minutes ticked by. It felt like forever before Zoë heaved a breath and held up a small, flattened hunk of metal. "Ooh, you're lucky, Levi! Your shoulder blade stopped it. If it'd gone all the way through, you'd've bled out on the way here! Say, they said that law enforcement got a bullet in you in the Rockies, that true? Did you take care of it yourself? Did it get infected? Are you one of those outlaws with a prosthetic?!" Zoë eagerly touched Levi's arms and legs to see. The put-upon man looked tired-- he still hadn't uttered a cry-- but smiled at the deputy's eagerness. Erwin put his hand on her back. 

"Time to be getting home, Hanji. I'll finish up here."  
She pouted, but nodded just the same. "Sure. He can answer my other questions later." 

The silence in Nevada was about as all-encompassing as its desert plains. Without Hanji's lively commentary, the two men had nothing to do but avoid looking at each other. Erwin noticed that Levi was lying much stiller beneath his hands as he bandaged his shoulder, his eyes nearly closed. The physical exertion had to have taken a toll, and-- Erwin fought back his envy-- even someone strong as a bison had to rest now and again. With his coat removed, his belt and suspenders loosened, his shirt open, he looked even smaller than he had out in the dessert. He had a fragile look to him-- though his body was muscled and firm, he had the gaunt, pale look of someone malnourished in childhood. Erwin had seen it before. 

On the ranch in Wyoming, when crops had run dry and cattle rustlers flooded in, prosperity was nowhere to be seen and starving families were abundant. His parents became loggers, a little further up north, leaving him to tend to the few cows and sheep and chickens who hadn't perished. Then, and only then, it got warmer. The rains were gentle and plentiful. Those children put on their weight again in apple cider and cracking bread and sides of beef, but they never quite outgrew their drawn cheeks. The pink, angelic baby's fat of younguns just couldn't be replaced. 

"What is that… ?" 

"Hm?" Erwin pinned the last bandage down, realizing only then that he had begun to hum to himself, lost in memories of the great Wyoming wilderness. He looked at Levi's face, expecting to see derisive, cruel humor, but the man's eyes had slid completely shut, and his lips were parted-- only a little. So his question was sincere. "Just a song from home. Sorry, you need your rest, I'll let you sleep." 

"Mm." It seemed that he wanted to say more, but he didn't. Instead he folded his hands on his stomach and exhaled a cool northerly breath. The room seemed to drop in temperature, but a heat stirred in Erwin.

Erwin felt something sour curl in his stomach as he closed and locked the door of the cell. It was a large room within the office that included a bed, a bucket and sink (behind a sheer curtain), and a wooden bench, guarded off by thick iron bars and a heavy bolted door. Levi's sleeping form was tucked beneath the warmest blanket Erwin could find, supine on the old mattress in the corner. Surely, Erwin thought looking at him, he only seemed bearable because he was fatigued. Once he was back to normal, he'd be a-spitting and a-snarling like any old villain of the West. It was the right decision to pick him up and move him behind bars. If he didn't, he might very well wake up with another one of the man's cleverly hidden implements against his throat. 

That night Erwin left the door between his room and the town jail proper cracked open, in case… in case. From his bed, he watched the dark line between the door and its frame, like any moment Levi's fingers would come reaching out to touch him.


	2. much obliged

"I'd be much obliged for one of those." 

It was the first thing Levi had said all day. After Erwin had washed up and shaved in his window-sized mirror in the bathroom, he'd dressed in his canvas trousers, a loose white shirt with wheat-colored embroidery across the back and shoulders and winking gold buttons, and suspenders. After a moment's thought, he'd slid a folded, clean shirt (one of Zoë's that she'd forgotten there-- which was more likely to fit Levi) and a wool poncho that had never suited him through the bars of the cell. Then, his prisoner had still been asleep, chest rising and falling evenly, having not shifted to his side through the entire night. How often did he rest somewhere secure, without a worry about what might find him in his sleep? 

Afterwards, he'd cooked some grits and bacon and left a plate nearby the clothes. He had the strangest urge to give Levi privacy and time to compose himself, even though he knew he would be disappointed by the irrational, uncouth outlaw surely hiding beneath this raven's devilishly good looks. 

Instead of working at his desk, where he would be only a few strides from the sleeping man, he went for a ride through town and checked in on the citizens. 

"Keeping things clean, Sheriff?" the optometrist, Zeke, asked him curiously, hanging out the door of his shop as Erwin passed by. 

"Same as always." 

"Heard you brought in an outlaw from the hills last night." 

Erwin gave him a sidelong look. "Do you know why dogs are man's best friend, Ezekiel?" 

The near-sighted man smiled patiently and shook his head. "It's because they wag their tails, not their tongues. Can't trust gossip, no sir. C'mon now," he tipped his hat, shook the reins and continued down the street. 

And then, by the time he got back, Levi had finally awoken. He sat on the edge of the cot, dressed in Hanji's sky blue blouse, his chaps discarded on the floor in favor of the black trousers he wore beneath them. He looked towards Erwin when his boots clunked against the wooden floors, announcing his entrance, and he watched him sit down at his desk opposite the jail cell. The sheriff pulled out the necessary paperwork to contact the Pinkerton Agency. Though he wasn't partial to the weaselly, anti-union detectives who worked for them, there was only so much he could do alone and transporting an outlaw over state lines wasn't one of his skills. Levi didn't say anything at all until after Erwin grew tired of penmanship and extracted a sack of tobacco from the drawer. His large hand worked deftly to roll the dark brown fibers into a cigarette, which he slid between his lips. 

"I'd be much obliged for one of those," Levi said, his hip cocked against the bars. Erwin glanced up. Oh, his gaze was mesmerizing. No wonder the bank tellers and saloon owners were so easily charmed into giving up their earnings. This outlaw was, without doubt, the prettiest he'd ever seen. Perhaps for that reason, Erwin sidled out from behind his desk and handed Levi the cigarette that he had just rolled for himself. Surprisingly, he didn't try anything. He even stood patiently while Erwin struck a match and lit it for him. "Thank you kindly, jailor," he murmured, taking a long drag. 

Erwin looked at him crossly. "I believe I was clear, Mr. Ackerman, that I plan on treating you as an American citizen with rights, and more'n that, a wounded man. But you've still broken the law, and that has consequences." 

Levi leaned his wrist against the bars, looking up at the much taller man coolly, blowing smoke from the corner of his mouth. "Mister Ackerman now? It's Levi, _Erwin_." 

Once again, the way he said his name was so… so… "I didn't mean to get so amicable last night." Erwin paced back to his desk to roll another for himself. "You were in shock, weren't acting right, I had to intervene." He took a deep breath of composure and gestured to himself. "You oughta call me Sheriff Smith." 

Levi's lips quirked up in a smile that almost immediately vanished, like an eagle against the sun. There, striking, then gone with a lonely caw. "I was fine, _Sheriff Smith_."

That didn't help. The amusement in his tone at Erwin's title was cutting. 

"Posse would've had you hung from your neck," he answered confidently, though Levi's self-certainty was infectious. Maybe he could've taken them all out and Erwin would've had more than one body to carry back to the grove. He certainly seemed strong enough. He thought to ask him what the members of the gang had looked like, but he was already aware that most of the older men in the town-- regardless of how they treated him in the daylight-- were a part of this roving mob. Even the professorial optometrist had his secrets, as much as he liked to flaunt other people's. But even if he had asked, he doubted he would get an answer. It seemed Levi had given up on the conversation. The raven had returned to his cot and lied back, still smoking-- from then until dusk, the only sign of life from his cell was a soft sigh of approval regarding Erwin's choice in tobacco. 

Agents would come within a month's time to collect the notorious outlaw and Erwin was thanked personally by wire correspondence for bringing him in. The Pinkerton detective on the case even commented that this boded well for the order and goodness of southern Nevada. By all accounts, he had been an outstanding sheriff; not even Hanji, who looked at wanted posters for leisure reading, voiced criticism-- and everyone in town seemed not only unsurprised by the news, but delighted with it. He was forced to try and tamper down the enthusiasm about hanging him on main street. Erwin did not enjoy hangings. 

By all accounts, he didn't enjoy being a sheriff either, since at this, the height of his career, he was lacking the satisfaction of a job well done. Maybe because the man in the jail cell never turned on him, not once; he never uttered an insult, didn't try to escape, to talk his way out of it. He sat in his thoughtful, infuriating silence, his expression unchanging, like this was no more concerning than a few miles down the wrong road. Occasionally, he would ask Erwin for something: a book to read, a cup of coffee, some scratch paper-- on which he drew the landscape outside his window. Skillfully, too. Erwin couldn't keep from eyeing the drawing whenever Levi's back was turned. He liked the way his hills overlapped the horizon line, like it was the beyond that they were meant to focus on. Something greater than themselves. He'd always appreciated people who could see the largeness of the world. 

Erwin left two hand-rolled cigarettes and two matches along with the outlaw's meals. He gave him books and provided him with a change of clothes every other day. When he rotated his bandages, he didn't tie him down-- though those moments were always tense, many averted glances, bated breaths, as Erwin's hand held down the other side of his chest, moving slow, a twitch away from stroking the outlaw's moonlight skin. 

Part of him was always concerned about hurting the man. 

And sometimes they talked. By the end of the first week, Erwin gleaned that Levi had been born in Virginia and was taken out West by a man whose name he wouldn't say. He'd been wielding an iron since he was seven, and he'd seen everything from the largest lake in the USA to the widest canyon. Erwin found that he could coax a recollection out of him, and his voice would get soft and meditative: "Hard to forget," Levi often murmured, as though compensating for the richness of his memory. These Erwin returned by telling stories about his ranch back home. They compared notes on riding in the snow, recollecting the brutal wilderness up north. They challenged each other with wild tales about blizzards, mountains, horses barely able to lift a leg, everything but the space within an inch of them obscured by a thick blanket of white-- hunting claims came next, then fishing, and when the sun came up Saturday morn, Erwin was comfortable enough to pull a chair up next to the cell once he had prepared Levi's breakfast, clothing, and cigarettes, a story at the ready-- 

"Ever swum upstream in a river with water rushing at you like a pack of buffalo? Ever raced an upstream?" 

Levi's form stirred on the bed. He sat upright and looked at Erwin, whose youthsome anecdote caught in his throat as he observed that the man had gone to sleep without a shirt. His tumbleweed hair, black and thick as a mare's coat, was rumpled around his ears and there was a sheen of saliva across his lower lip. It shone like silver. His marble chest beneath the bandages fluttered with the quick breaths of sleep-- and even though Erwin had seen him shirtless before, this added vulnerability caught him off guard. 

"It's the Sabbath, Sheriff…" he ran his slender fingers through his hair, pushing it away from his tired eyes. His voice was dazed, mid-dream. 

It was the kind of sight of a man that was meant to be limited to lovers and wives, not-- jailors and prisoners. Erwin unbolted the door and set the day's provisions on the wooden bench, averting his gaze. 

"Do you wake up at dawn every single day?" Levi chuckled. "Farmboy." 

"That's enough outta you, Yank," the sheriff replied fondly. "I'll leave you to your sleep." 

Another soft laugh. Levi curled up once more under Erwin's blanket, his face disappearing beneath his mop of hair. It was tough for the sheriff to turn away, but he forced himself to do it. A vision of a dark-haired boy from his Sunday school who couldn't run away from him fast enough when he asked him to hold his hand after the service. The handsome city boys who avoided his gaze on the train, the only time he ever rode it, going south from Wyoming. No, Erwin couldn't linger. 

He went straight outside to smoke and clear his head, plunking down on a stool outside of the jailhouse window. He lit his cigarette and took a drag, tipping his head back and looking out at the horizon. The hills and the solid line that the sun liked to disappear behind. No mercy from his thoughts there; this was the landscape that Levi had drawn, the view that adorned his cell, Erwin's proof of his wise mind. 

He turned away from the rolling hills, the outlaw's boundless horizon and idly plucked the strings of the shining banjo that leaned disused against the side of the sheriff's office. 

"Ah, may the red rose live always- to smile upon the earth and sky," his fingers plucked a familiar, simple melody on the strings of the instrument, "why should the beautiful ever weep, why should the beautiful die?" 

He could never remember more than that, but it was pleasant to play something, anything. His harmonica was gathering rust in his desk; it had been so long since he had wanted to make music. He wasn't sure what possessed him to it now, to sing these lyrics of this old song that his father used to play on fiddle for his mother, used to tool out on piano to help Erwin sleep. 

"May the red rose live always, to smile upon the earth and sky," his fingers danced across the wires, silver as Levi's eyes, quick as his lips, "why should the beautiful ever weep, why should the beautiful die," he tipped his head back and took a much-needed drag of his cigarette. 

The sheriff's name was on the congregation's lips the next day. "Sheriff Smith from Paredmaria," murmurs of the posse on the outskirts of town, "has the _Riviera Raven_ in custody," the pastor slapped the podium with an open hand, "and I say job well done! These godless outlaws keep us trapped in fear, and it's godly men like Sheriff Smith standing in their way." Scattered applause. Erwin sat stiffly in his pew, hoping no one would try to speak to him after the service. Their eyes felt fiery: he reminded himself that pride was a sin. 

This was no fancy European church with vaulted ceilings and stained glass, room for thousands. Out here the only presence of cathedrals was in illustrations in hardcover copies of The Hunchback. This church was wood and nothing else, the color of dust, with a crude, man-sized crucifix poised on the platform behind the pastor. Jesus Christ was half-carved, his legs swelling into a block of wood past his knees-- but his taut, muscular abdomen had been paid special attention, same with the buds of red paint that rested in either of his palms. The expression on his face had been neglected as well, his features rough downward cuts into the vague shape of a nose, a chin, sallow eyes cast at his feet. 

The crucifix didn't just provoke shame. It represented the stoicness of a courageous victim, the ultimate martyr, punished not for his sins but for his lack of sins. 

Erwin was more than happy to spread the book of hymns across his lap and avert his eyes from his-- strangely alluring-- Lord and Savior. 

"Do you have relatives you'd like me to contact about your hearing?" Erwin's pen was poised above his paperwork, the thought having just occurred to him. "I could give you paper to write a letter to your parents, or," he looked back down, "your wife? Someone hand and glove?" 

Levi had taken to coming right up to the bars when Erwin spoke to him, displaying his waifish body by winding one arm around the metal poles and pressing his temples between them, so his head and hand leered into Erwin's workspace. It made the space between them seem like nothing, made Erwin's heart beat faster. "What would you say to your wife if you were in my position?" Levi's lips moved like they were telling a very smart joke. 

The blond's bushy eyebrows furrowed. "I don't have a wife." 

For a moment, he thought he saw Levi's eyes gleam. Then he blinked and the man was back to looking like he always did: calm, collected, uncaring. "Neither do I," he said shortly. 

Erwin sighed and dropped his pen. "I just thought I would ask." 

"I had a husband." 

Out of everything about the sentence Levi had uttered, the first thing that Erwin really noticed was, "Had? Is he…" 

Levi nodded curtly, reaching for a cigarette. Erwin gave him far more than he smoked each day, and he'd accumulated a small pyramid, which he kept stacked on top of the books he'd finished reading. He plunked down on the wooden bench and looked up at the ceiling after he'd lit it, his dark hair falling away from his face to reveal a fraction of concentration, a wrinkle between his eyes. The sheriff leaned forward, watching him smoke. "My condolences, Levi. I… well. We've all lost people." He looked out the window, observing a gust of dirt that was moving in a lazy spiral across the road. The church bells tolled three times-- mid-afternoon, the height of the day's heat. 

Something occurred abruptly to both of them then, and when he looked back at Levi, their eyes met narrowed and questioning: 

_Are you…?_

_What about you?_

_Yes…_

_Yes._

Erwin's fingers lay flat on the desk. They twitched, once, aching to curl in on themselves. He forced himself to stay still. He was the sheriff. Levi Ackerman was an outlaw destined for court and then federal prison, there was no feasible way they could… anything. Not that he thought Levi wanted him necessarily, because that would be… 

Levi studied Erwin and exhaled his smoke with that goddamn picturesque look of complete indifference. He was beautiful in a way that Erwin supposed only those who had turned against society could look-- beautiful in a way that Erwin thought he himself never could be. This small, delicate man with his feathery black hair and his quick, slender fingers that were said could manipulate any blade, gun, or person, was unbound to others. He'd become completely untouchable. He was free. And what was Sheriff Smith? Imprisoned by his hard-fought principles and virtues. Kept by the state, commanded helplessly by men and Gods. Looking at him then, Erwin wanted to throw everything away, if only Levi would tell him he'd made the right decision. 

Instead, he reached below his desk and reached for the-- until now, untouched-- jug of alcohol that the previous sheriff had mischievously left for him as a parting gift. He held it up. 

"How powerful's your thirst, Ackerman?" 

Levi's icy expression twitched, and Erwin thought he spotted a fraction of relief. "Bottomless," he answered, sounding bored enough that the sheriff almost believed him. 

Erwin sat close to the bars, one sturdy leg bent up against the metal, elbow on his knee, and the other propped before him on its spurs. He poured them two tin cups of the old sheriff's bourbon and passed one through the bars, into Levi's hands. _Deadly_ hands, the lawman reminded himself. The outlaw lowered himself gracefully to the ground and took an unhesitant gulp of the drink, his throat bobbing like an apple in the wind. Erwin looked twice, suddenly struck with the image of his own hand wrapping around fruit and plucking it from the tree, bringing it up to his lips, the surface tension _bursting_ , the juices on his chin. He blinked hard and made certain that the next thing he saw was the bottom of his cup. 

It tasted far bitter than coffee, warm in a much different way that traveled down his throat and stuck in his lungs and his heart, twisting hot behind his ribs. He loosened his collared church shirt, letting his neck free. 

His thumb hooked around the jug to replenish himself, breaking the silence with the sound of liquid hitting the metal bottom. Levi tapped his own cup against the bars, leaning forward. 

"Was he like you?" Erwin filled the tin up an inch below the lip. "Your husband," it was a wonder Levi could hear him. 

"You mean a no-count outlaw, Sheriff Smith?" Levi tipped his forehead against the bars and closed his eyes, drinking deeply. "No, sir. When I was first on the run, he saw me in his town and… asked that he come with me. He'd never been outside of state lines. I was bound for Canady then, he said he wanted to see the world." His eyes snapped open, hard as rock. "But he never held a gun, I made sure of that. When you pick up a weapon you make a deal with the devil." 

Erwin thought about his own pistol and the lives it'd taken. He found himself leaning his shoulder against the cell bars, guilt swimming in its usual pool beneath his heart. "You don't lie," he agreed. 

"Problem was, he was a fool. No more sense in his head than the Rockies has roads," affection thick in his voice, "and when he asked that we settle down somewhere north where we could have a real homestead, I didn't tell him to shut his trap and just be content with the trail," another long drink, for both of them-- Erwin didn't say a word, looking at his own face swimming back at him in a bourbon mirror. "He would've listened to me. Just like he listened to me when I told him not to touch my guns. They shot him down easily, burned the homestead to the ground while I… was gone." 

Erwin was quick to refill both their cups after that, but he didn't want to let the silence swell again. "What did he look like?" 

Levi's eyes slid shut. "Prettiest damn eyes you ever saw. Green like Georgia in the summer." 

A sympathetic ache rocked Erwin's chest. "I knew a green-eyed gal." 

Levi looked up at the blond man with interest. Erwin couldn't meet his eyes. "We were goin' to be married for a while. But… seems I weren't enough." He drank, obscuring his vision of the outlaw; when he lowered his arm back down to his knee, his eyes were cast up to the heavens in thought. Finally, he scoffed. 

"Can't imagine it would've been you, Sheriff." 

"Erwin'll do," the hotness of the liquor was moving unpredictably. 

Levi's eyebrow arched minutely and once more, his eyes appeared to gleam. "Can't imagine it would've been _you_ , Erwin," he repeated. It sounded so pleasant on his tongue, as if his name tasted like sugar to him. 

"How's that?" 

"Above your bend. There ain't a spot on your coat nor a hair on your chin." 

Erwin scoffed, taken aback. "What good's a clean husband?" 

Levi levelled his eyes at him. "Weren't my meaning, but nonetheless-- plenty good," he murmured eventually, wrapping his hand around the bars and hoisting himself up. Sat like this, their height difference was much less noticeable. The outlaw looked so damn _mesmerizing_. Now Erwin couldn't tear his eyes away as Levi looked at him up and down, head to toe. "Picture that, letting a stallion free," he continued in that low, gentle voice, his Virginian accent coursing each word. Erwin straightened up and wrapped his hand over Levi's. His fingers twitched beneath the taller man's palm. "Well, picture keeping a stallion behind a fence," he answered, the words light as air: they hung between them like a foggy morning. 

Their faces grew closer, parting the mist. Erwin touched his forehead to Levi's through the bars, both of them looking back-- sightlessly aware of the other. 

"You could run," Erwin breathed. 

"What about the posse? I…"

"Point out the leader and I'll gun him down." 

"Erwin." 

"Levi, please," his hand tightened. "I can tell you don't deserve this. You're a good man." 

The Riviera Raven said nothing. They withdrew from each other slowly, finishing what was left in their cups and looking down at the floorboards. 

They both drank more. 

The afternoon passed by and became night, the two men swaying slightly, only looking at each other to light their cigarettes. The bottle shrank closer to empty. The moon high, the sheriff slumped up against the bars, sleep came to them both-- or so Erwin thought as he dozed. But once, he was stirred by a raucous bout of laughter from the saloon at the other end of town, and opening his eyes found Levi standing and staring out the window of his cell. 

He was singing. "... the red rose live always… upon the earth and sky…" the deep tremble of his quiet singing voice coaxed Erwin's nerves down, and he was soon asleep again, amazed that the man had heard him. 

"Why should the beautiful ever weep, why should the beautiful… die?"


	3. anything goes in the west

In the morning sun, beneath the brow of his hat, Erwin's blue eyes were misty. Passing out on the floor in front of Levi's cell had put painful spots up and down his spine, and it took a little more effort than usual to sit up straight on Rose, the tall appaloosa who'd been with him for years. His head felt swollen and heavy, and he was sure his horse could sense something was the matter. "Easy, little lady," he patted her neck with his palm, grateful for an excuse to lean down and out of the light. When he raised his head, a set of glasses glinted into his eyes. 

He clenched the reins and slowed to a stop in front of Ezekiel's store. "How'd ya do?" 

"Oh fine, just fine-- you?" there was something extra in his eyes. Erwin waited, and after a pause, Zeke added, "Heard cups clinking from the sheriff's station. I thought you and the Deputy might be sharing a drink, but Miss Zoë was gamblin' late into the night with some officers from the north. So, who might you be drinking with?" He scratched his beard, watching Erwin's face. It wasn't shocking that the sound had carried-- in fact, he was ashamed he hadn't thought of that, and the thought of this man discovering the relationship that he and Levi had was terrifying. 

Yet his tired eyes did not change, gazing mildly down at the other man. "Even a no-count criminal deserves a drink now and again. You make a habit of eavesdropping, Ezekiel?" 

"Do you make a habit of drinking with wanted men? Getting friendly, Sheriff?" 

Zeke's eyes were a kind of cold and dark that he'd only ever seen on men who'd challenged him to duel-- eyes of Sam Hill, eyes of death. Erwin's grip tightened on his reins. He saw Zeke's arm move, his thumb brushing the holster at his waist where his pistol glinted. But he was sure the other man was too intelligent to shoot a man of the law in broad daylight; it was an insecurity fuelling a desire for the comfort of his weapon. Zeke felt threatened. 

Erwin tipped his hat, the picture of friendliness. "It ain't against the law, I oughta know." A reminder that even if Zeke was king out there in the hills, he didn't have that power here. The optometrist smiled tightly. 

"I only meant to suggest I might make better company, Sheriff," he said insincerely, rapping his knuckles on the railing beside the sidewalk. 

"Good mornin' to you," he turned away without waiting for a response and urged his horse down the street. 

The door of the jailhouse clapped open and slammed shut, Erwin locking it immediately behind him. With his keys still out, he approached Levi's cell-- the outlaw was fully dressed but sprawled on his back, one arm over his eyes-- and slid the key in place to unbolt the door. Levi sat up slowly, easing up onto his elbows as the sheriff pushed the door open and stood to the side. He looked up at Erwin, those cloudy eyes ringed with shadows, then looked to the entrance. 

"Are they here?" His voice was hoarse with sleep-- he meant the agents. Erwin could hear him making an effort to sound apathetic. Well, he'd do no such thing. "No-- this is-- Just get out, Levi. Go," he said firmly. "My horse is saddled outside, you could make a break for it. The next town ain't sixty miles east." 

Levi stood up slowly, too slowly. This felt urgent, like it would only work if it happened now-- hadn't the outlaw grasped that? Seemingly no, because wearing nothing but a pair of Erwin's corduroys-- the hems rolled up and the waist cinched by the man's belt-- the raven crossed over to him, reached up and casually removed his wide-brimmed hat, smiling mildly. "Impolite to wear your hat inside, Erwin." 

"That's just back east, Levi. Anything goes in the west." 

"Anything?" Levi dropped his hat on the bench inside the cell and-- oh, God-- took hold of Erwin's belt buckle. He flattened his back against the wall behind him, staring down at the smaller man. 

"No… not anything," he amended, but didn't move to take the other's hands off him. Instead he pushed his dark hair out of his eyes. "I-- please, Levi, get out of here. I'll pray for you," he added, resting his hands on either of Levi's bare shoulders. 

Stockstill in his arms the outlaw shook his head. "And make a lousy sheriff out of you?" Erwin heard the click of metal, felt the slip of leather, and looked down in time to see Levi unfurling his belt readily-- his hands reaching beneath the edge of his linen shirt, and it was almost clear that in all this time he'd been studying Levi, the delicate arches of his features and hands, his powerful chest, imagining something like touching him, he'd been doing the same. The criminal's watchful eyes had traced his belt with the aim of taking it off, had pictured pulling his shirt up like this. The fond, nearly familiar movements coaxing a soft sigh from Erwin, he slid his hands down and took Levi's wrists in a bittersweet parody of the first time they'd laid eyes on each other. 

"Levi," he pleaded. The outlaw rocked his hips up; Erwin felt the wall make contact with his tailbone and this small campfire between them stoked instantly to a roaring blaze-- the kind that turned forests into so many matchsticks. He groaned, deep and satisfying, like he'd stepped into a hot spring. Levi's fingers stuttered on the buttons of his shirt, his eyelids fluttering as he registered the approving sound. It was impossible to hold back any longer. Erwin coiled one strong arm around Levi's waist and pulled him closer, tighter, squashing his arms against his chest, and bent down. 

Their lips brushed, eyes flicking up at each other for a moment of reassurance, permission… admiration. Levi's mouth silky as cream, Erwin's world went dark, his eyes shutting so all he could feel were the mischievous flicks of the smaller man's tongue, writhing hands finally snapping his shirt open and greedily smoothing over his broad pectorals. His throat vibrated with a hum of pleasure and they broke apart, flushed as cactus flowers. 

Erwin caught his breath, "we have to be quiet--" before Levi pulled him inside, over to the bed. He really knew what he was doing, the sheriff marveled-- apart from a few rolls in the hay, he'd only ever shown his affection by providing and protecting, holding his girl close, squeezing a friend on the shoulder. But this gorgeous outlaw was quick to the punch, guiding Erwin onto his back on the cot in the corner and straddling his hips. Sat above him so imperiously, Erwin was struck once more by the other's beauty; like the moon at her peak, like mountains from their base. He dragged his fingertips down his chest and stomach. "You're…" Levi drank the words straight out of his mouth, coiling his hands around the back of Erwin's neck. 

The weight of his body on his chest stoked a mad, devilish heat. Fuck. He moaned into Levi's mouth at the same time that his quicksilver tongue began to explore, tongue and teeth and palate, and he was blind once again with pleasure. His hands traveled eagerly down his back, around his thighs, digging into the coarse denim of his trousers to feel the curve of his pert ass. It was like quenching thirst: the relief of his curiosity, his dry-mouthed, barely-formed fantasies, and the reality of the thing was far beyond any sensation Erwin could have dreamed of. Levi's muscles were taut beneath his palms. He could feel every slight eager roll of his hips, every twitch of the other man's pleasure as his tongue found and plundered each secret, sensitive part of his mouth. 

When Levi finally retreated Erwin could barely breathe, his broad chest moving a tick faster than usual. He combed his fingers through the man's hair, looking up at him reverently; like letting your hand blow in the wind, Levi's head descended beneath his digits, only stopping to hover above the space between his hips. "Oh, God," Erwin breathed. Was he really…?

It seemed so. Levi pulled down his trousers with a sudden and unexpected ferocity, as if he'd reached the end of his capacity to wait. Erwin's flushed arousal sprang free, reflected in Levi's shining eyes. "Stallion was right," he purred, almost _coquettish_. The blond's knuckles curled against his skull, noting that Levi was enjoying taking in his appearance with raking, pervasive eyes. He lied back patiently and waited for him to have his fill. Yet Levi didn't seem so eager anymore, sitting back on Erwin's thighs-- escaping from the grip on his hair-- and breathing slowly, steadily. It was one thing to be looked at in passing, studied during conversation, another to be so purposefully beheld. A curious spark-- does he, did he, could they, but the sheriff had no answers and the outlaw was in no hurry to start talking. 

With one deft hand, Levi reached forward and stroked a hitch in Erwin's breath. He took the cue to cover his mouth with his palm, ocean-blue eyes narrowing. The stifled sensations, rough sand-worn skin massaging a bliss like heaven, taking his composure from him-- that something unbearably individual and private being seen by another turned his neck pinker than chicken skin. Erwin remained still, not wanting to accidentally buck the little criminal off of him; and a good thing, because as his hips trembled with the effort of containing his fiery arousal, Levi bowed his head and wrapped his lips around the head of his cock. 

The pleasure shot through him like a lightning bolt cracks the open sky. It was so goddamn good, it took every ounce of his strength not to dig his nails into Levi's supple arms and drive him down further, deeper-- but he was not, and would never be a selfish lover. He remained patient beneath him but clenched his fist tighter against his mouth to keep the moans from escaping. There was no telling who might hear them-- sound travelled faster than a flood here. Levi hummed and stroked Erwin's hip, as if calming an animal down. Strangely, it made it easier not to buck and squirm as his mouth travelled further down, Erwin's sensitive cock sliding against his stiff, wet, eager tongue. He sighed, _God help me_ , when he felt Levi's nose hit his pubic hair, rolling up like a wave. Slow and steady. Levi pushed him back down, splaying his fingers across his chest. 

It had never occurred to Erwin before that the feminine buds on his chest, his rosy nipples, could elicit similar responses as his manhood. But a few passes of Levi's fingers, scraping and pinching, sent jolts of pure fucking heat through him. He had the sense that he had been doing the right thing by lying still so far, though the combination of Levi's mouth and fingers were driving him straight over the canyon's edge. Moving easily apart from a few shudders of pleasure, Erwin began to lean up, drawing the brunet's mouth off of him. "Let me…" he slid Levi's buttons from their hooks. The raven grunted a kind of reluctant approval, shucking off his trousers and settling down harder on Erwin's chest. Compared to the rest of his body, his length was _huge_. The lawman found himself lost in thought looking at it. 

"You wanna please me, don't you?" Levi dragged a finger down the side of his face. 

"Of course," Erwin leaned up on his elbows, gazing up at the other. "Ain't you seen yourself, Mr. Ackerman?" he found there was something coy, flirtatious, budding underneath his ribcage. He stroked Levi's stomach, dragging his thumbs down his abdominal muscles. Levi watched him carefully. 

"Why, yes, Sheriff Smith… but I fail to see what you find so…" Levi sucked in a breath as Erwin lunged forward to press a kiss beneath the skeletal fan of his ribs, " _alluring_." 

Erwin looked up at him again, sky blue eyes shimmering like the underside of a bald eagle in flight on a sunny day, and held a hand to the side of his face. "This…" his thumb brushed over his lips, his index finger gently beneath his eyelid, "and this," his dark hair hanging above him, a curtain of night, "this…" his hand dragged down Levi's muscular arm, down his back-- avoiding his bullet wound-- to his legs, and his other hand joined in, stroking the man's available skin reverently. "This, God, everything… everything." 

Levi's expression was unreadable so Erwin didn't try. He bowed his head over his lap and captured his head in his lips, the way he'd done-- the only way about it was to improvise based on what he'd seen his partner do, plus he presumed he _must_ have a decent idea of what felt good on another man. No teeth, he curled his lips, plenty of moisture, he laved earnestly at Levi's skin. He tasted musky and savory, like dark, dark liquor; his head was filled with images of horses licking salt blocks, water rushing beneath bridges, cherries breaking on rocks and the birds tearing out the pits, his jaw relaxing and his throat opening to make room for Levi's cock. 

"Sam Hill, that's good," Levi whispered, stroking Erwin's scalp. The larger man's torso bent forward, arms around Levi's legs, his own neglected arousal bobbing tantalizingly close to the outlaw's bared ass. Spurred by his reaction, Erwin wrapped a strong arm around Levi's narrow waist and pulled him closer, deeper, hotter, tighter; he sucked air in through his nose and rolled his hips expertly forward, damn near unaffected. The heat and warmth billowing back into Erwin's face from his nose had the humidity of the coast Levi originated from, making him pant and huff even without the touch of his lover. 

_His_ lover. Once again, questions pooled in the back of Erwin's mind that he had no idea how to ask. 

Thankfully there were plenty of distractions abound. 

Fucking Erwin's mouth with a forgiving pace, Levi's lower lip exhibited a tremble and his eyelashes fluttered above his cheeks. Excited by the prospect of bringing him closer to the crest of feeling, Erwin doubled down, hollowing his cheeks and stroking the underside of his member with his tongue as it rocked back and forth in his mouth. Levi clapped a hand to his mouth, eyes flying open with-- anger? ecstasy? surprise? He could look at that impassive face for ages and never learn all of its imperceptible cues. For a split second, the outlaw seemed to lose control, grabbing one of the bars of the jailhouse window, his hips stammering forward. 

But the next thing he knew, Levi was withdrawing, wrapping one of his own hands around his length and pumping fervently. Erwin watched, rapt, as his pace slowed-- surely, he was near his natural conclusion!-- and he removed his fingers, cracking each one separately. His erection was as red and soft as feathers, and it was all he could do not to lean forward and recapture it with his lips. 

And then he returned to his place between Erwin's legs, bowing down and taking him in with even more intensity than before. It was as though he was trying to one-up him, the way they did conversationally talking about buck hunts and long rides and late nights. And this time Erwin didn't have a counter. All he had were the strained, broken, stuttering gasps, sighs, and moans that he muffled behind his hand as Levi treated him like a calico queen, touching and probing, using his tongue and throat in ways that Erwin could barely understand, carrying him up a holy mountain for which he had no name, only knowing that at its summit was something that would make all other pleasures pale and weak by comparison. Levi did not leave him for one moment. His pace went from fast and light to slow and hard, fast and hard, rough and needy, teasing, conquering, but he was always there between Erwin's thighs and his hands were always somewhere too, rubbing shapes in his skin. He had no idea how he was managing to keep quiet; it felt like his thoughts were draining out the back of his head, his focus shrinking to each of the crimsoned places where Levi touched him. 

And then the sky was cracking, 

he was falling in Levi's arms and clutched him appropriately-- with the ferociousness of someone on the brink of death-- as his orgasm ripped through his strong, large frame, 

and he was still trying to catch his breath when he came back into full consciousness, his arms wrapped heavily around Levi's shoulders. 

He was shaking like a leaf in the wind. Levi grumbled and squirmed out of his arms, turning to spit something into the bucket in the corner with precise aim. He wiped his mouth with his hand and then leaned down, pressing a kiss to Erwin's throat. 

"I'll think about you over my next drink, Sheriff." 

And just like that, the Riviera Raven bolted, leaving Erwin dazed and sore on his cot-- 'Giddy up!' the last words he heard him call out in his deep, rarely emotional voice. He supposed he was too light-headed to tell, but it almost seemed like the words cracked when Levi said them. But why? The gunshots that followed were far too late, the clatter of his hooves long-gone. He'd gotten away.


	4. faith

Through the weeks that followed, the hardest part was keeping his faith. 

Not in God, though when he sat in church he kept his eyes trained on the speaker, keeping his mind focused on the sermon with a wise man's discipline. No, Erwin was scrabbling for belief of a different value: whether he had done the right thing by permitting Levi's escape, or he had merely submitted to temptation, whether Levi had done what he'd had done out of a genuine affection or… 

Maybe the little outlaw's intentions had always been to exploit this flaw in his heart. Their shared moments, gazes, touches, were part of a complicated ruse, and Levi's power as a criminal was in his ability to be so truly insincere, so cowardly and bad-hearted, that he'd managed to play the sheriff for a fool. 

These thoughts normally came late in the night when Erwin was lying on his bed, ankle bouncing against the inside of the footboard-- he was much too tall for the frame-- searching for sleep in the moonlit slats above him. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw Levi's head between his thighs, remembered the wink in his eyes and the impossibly tender touch of his fingertips. Surely, that hadn't been a lie, he would think, and something would stir up in the back of his head, answering cruelly-- how would he know a damn thing about lying? Every time he'd tried when he was young he'd grow so afeared of the consequences, he always fessed up right away. 

Of course, he'd kept it together when the detectives had arrived to collect their bounty. He wasn't a liar at heart, but he didn't lie to them: he told them plainly that the Raven had escaped, and no matter how they insinuated he must have been out drinking himself blind, that his post was poorly run, regardless of the whispered suggestions of a new sheriff appointment stirring in town, Erwin didn't say nary a word beyond that. He had made his decision. He couldn't see Levi in a California Collar, he wouldn't see him in a penitentiary, it was just plain wrong. 

That was assuming Levi was half the man Erwin believed. 

And yet it was when Erwin could no longer bring himself to think well of Levi, when he was certain he'd been tricked, lost a game to the devil, that he once again remembered their closeness. How _good_ it'd been. The rough breaths, the color on Levi's skin-- prettier than a setting sun. He couldn't help but think that if it had been the wrong decision, he'd at least made it worthwhile, but why, then, would it have felt so perfect to feel his strong legs and arms, to hold him in his mouth, to hear his deep, throaty cries of need? 

It was impossible to come to any conclusions. 

He was gone, and Erwin was left, and he had to make do with that life no matter how difficult it was. Deputy Zoë, mercifully, didn't ask questions. She stuck around more often, weighing his sagging shoulders with her eyes; when there were calls from the edge of town, it was typically Hanji who straddled her horse and pursued justice. He supposed she must think his pride'd been wounded by the situation and was giving him time to get over himself. 

And in some ways, she was right. At least he didn't take to drinking, stubbornly falling into bed each night and waiting with cold sobriety for the memory of Levi. It was fine to let his body rest while his mind ran on. Eventually, he'd be tired enough to sleep. 

On one such night, his muscles were more exhausted than usual. He'd finally resumed his duties in full, patrolling the town and her surroundings. No surprise, the citizens didn't speak to him like they once had-- they watched him from afar, gauging, gossiping. There was a strange omen on the horizon: a coal black mare without stirrups or reins, snorting fire and chasing down some poor auburn-haired man who'd tried to saddle her. 

Erwin had chased her for miles, hoping to tire her enough to bring the mad creature back to town. How a wild horse had wound up here, he didn't want to know. More than likely, her old rider's bones were turning white under the sun by now. But she continued to evade him, and as the sun began to set, he determined the chase wasn't worth it. The moon was high by the time he arrived back in town--not a sound interrupted the wind, not a whoop nor holler-- and he was grateful to settle into his bed once he'd hung up his day clothes. He decided to afford himself the luxury of a barenaked sleep, being that the night was still so silent and he'd ridden his legs sore for half the day. Like a slaughtered steer, his tough shoulders hit the mattress. One aching hand dragged the sheets over his sculptural physique and finally, rest soaked his muscles. 

He was asleep when the rider came into town with his hat pulled low over his eyes; everyone was, in fact, except the posse-- busy in the hills trying to wrangle the horse Erwin had seen-- and the travelers losing to Zoë in the saloon. No alarms were raised. The rider dismounted behind the sheriff's office and continued on foot, his approach so light there was only the faint sound spurs clicking softly. 

The locked door of Erwin's room clicked open. He stirred, the creak of a floorboard twitching in his ear. Had someone come in? His hands, thrown to either side of the bed (which faced away from the door) were in a particularly vulnerable position, but perhaps if he moved now… 

That thought cut off as a strong cord looped around each of his wrists and pulled taut, flattening his shoulders against the bed and making it difficult to look around. He flexed his arms, straining his forearms and forcing the other to give him slack- to his surprise, he easily came free, the loops dropping to his elbows-- he heard his assailant stumble forward and… laugh? 

"Evening, Sheriff Smith. I thought I might get the drop on you." 

"Levi?" Erwin's eyes widened and he tried to sit up, but the shorter man caught his momentary shock and took advantage by pulling the rope tight. It snapped against Erwin's wrists, pinning him down once more. This time, the wanted man wrapped the ends of both to the center pole on Erwin's headboard and knotted it quickly. Now when Erwin struggled, he was no longer fighting against Levi's grip, but rather the iron supports of his bed. It creaked unpleasantly. 

The outlaw walked around the side of his mattress, looking at his body admiringly. He took hold of the edge of the sheet, two-fingered, and pulled it off to expose the rest of Erwin's bare skin. The bed jostled as he fought his restraints. "What are you doing here?" his tone was firm. But quiet-- not signalling anyone. Levi didn't reply right away, his shadowed face still gazing at the body of the man in front of him. Erwin gritted his teeth. 

"What's the meaning of this, Levi?" He relaxed his muscles reluctantly, forcing himself to be calm. 

Levi stretched one hand out. He was wearing black gloves underneath his cloak, looking almost gentlemanly tonight. Clearly, his freedom had suited him well. The silk grazed Erwin's hip. "I'd like to be sure you don't arrest me tonight, beloved." 

Erwin's strong eyebrows knit together in confusion. Was he serious? "Bullshit." 

Once again, Levi laughed. 

Erwin was starting to feel a little mocked. "Explain yourself," he said crossly. 

"Don't you regret it?" Levi drew back, forcing Erwin to crane his neck in order to see him. He walked to Erwin's door and locked it, before striding to the kitchen. He touched one of the counters, looking out the window. "Letting me go." 

Erwin blinked. "No. I haven't changed my mind." 

In the moonlight, Levi's smile was even more dangerous. Erwin tried to remember why he'd been so conflicted about him. 

"Then I s'pose I just wanted to see you like this," he turned around, leaning against the counter and crossing his arms. Erwin could feel his eyes as well as he felt his hands; they ran down his neck and hips, his legs. "Pretty as a picture." 

The blond rolled his shoulders back, getting comfortable. "You make it sound like you were missing me, Levi." 

"Tch." Levi looked away from him. 

"Come over here." 

The click of Levi's spurs and his heels on the floorboards, after a beat, approaching-- filled Erwin's chest with anticipation. Grey eyes and clever, quick lips soon loomed above him, Levi's hands clasped behind his back. He was _inspecting_. Erwin suppressed a shiver. Had Levi felt like this, bound on his table? He couldn't have. There was no way Erwin's eyes could ever flash with the outlaw's brand of cold, perfect temptation-- the one that sent needles down his spine now. 

"You could get caught around these parts. You'd best leave…" Erwin's gaze wasn't cold nor perfect, but thoughtful, perceptive. Levi met it and he added, "... before dawn." 

Levi picked his gloves off his fingers and set them on Erwin's table. "We'll see." Like a vision from one of Erwin's nicer dreams, he climbed onto the bed and dropped down onto his thighs. He removed his hat and set it with his gloves. Face bared, his attractive features caught the night like the sky holding stars. Erwin exhaled slowly, raising his chin as though exhibiting defiance to his captor-- the expression in his eyes conveying clearly that he had never felt more devotional. 

Levi bent down and kissed him tenderly, cupping his cheeks with his hands. They smelled, Erwin noticed, like tobacco and gunpowder. 

The distracting slide of his tongue was as welcome as it was devastating. The bed rocked once more, the sheriff pulling on his bound arms as the outlaw sensually intruded his lips. "Is this necessary?" he asked, breathless and still shaking his restraints, as Levi withdrew. The brunet leaned down to his neck and smooched his stubbled skin wetly, feeling the resulting shiver coarse through Erwin's chest with one splayed hand. "No," Levi grinned at him wryly. That _look_ , the confidence, the claiming of dominion, went embarrassingly fast to Erwin's cock. 

That effect didn't escape Levi's notice. He locked lips again-- a surprisingly romantic gesture this time, light and affectionate-- and began to undo his belt. He climbed off of the other man in order to ruck his trousers down and remove his boots. Erwin watched his semi-hard cock where it lay beneath his drawers and wondered if he would put it in his mouth again, if he'd allow him the pleasure of that vulnerability. He was ashamed, but he salivated at the thought. He had liked how his skin had tasted. Liked the purring of Levi's lungs under each sound he made. 

Instead, he settled on top of him, touching his chin to his chest, his hands to his shoulders; hips to hips, knees between knees. Erwin dragged a heel up the bed, holding Levi's lower body with his leg. For a while, they just breathed like this, the smell of desert wind in the air, their bare skin touching warm and simple. Blue in the night. Across town, a group of people cheered for something; from the opposite direction, the rush of air from the distant hills had a voice. 

Erwin imagined a mouth open in song. 

Though the restraints did strike him as an unusual accessory, the taller man was surprised to find that the pull on his muscles was not entirely unpleasant. By drawing his body taut, Levi had made his skin tight over his nerves. There was a lack of awareness that made him feel sensitive. He could even feel the small puffs of air from Levi's delicate nose brush his neck. 

Not to mention the position underneath Levi, at his mercy in more than one way, turned him light-headed and dizzy. In this trancelike state, Erwin barely noticed when Levi's hand ghosted up his side-- but he certainly noticed when his fingers brushed up against his nipple, rubbed, and pinched _hard_. 

He hissed and rose up to meet the sensation. Levi's tongue unexpectedly took his fingers place. The moisture made it easier to toy with the bud of skin, sending off tiny, exciting shocks of sensation. It felt so new. 

The tip of the outlaw's tongue made itself familiar with the terrain of Erwin's chest. Teasing. Hesitant. Then hard, Levi bit down on a patch of skin beneath his throat and sucked on the skin. Silence was less of an issue this time, it being the dead of night, but Erwin nonetheless swallowed his pained cry. Levi chuckled. "Damn, you're tricky to surprise." He licked a stripe between Erwin's pectorals, landing on his throat. "Doesn't mean I'm not going to try…" 

Erwin felt something cold touch his erection and he stiffened. "What..." 

"Ssh," Levi kissed his jawline and stroked down harder, letting the sheriff feel the inside of his palm. He rubbed a liberal amount of vaseline, extracted from god-knows-where on his person, and stroked over Erwin's flushed, tender skin, breath hitching each time his fingers arrived at the base of his cock. 

It was undoubtedly the most erotic thing he had ever witnessed: this bold, smart, gorgeous man losing a fraction of his composure and proper sense just at the _feeling_ of his body. 

His hand disappeared and Erwin craned his neck up to see that Levi had pulled his underwear down and was reaching back, behind him, lips parted in concentration. Was he…? 

He _was_. 

A realizing moan left Erwin's mouth. "Fuck, Levi…" 

"You want that?" Levi had a wicked look buried deep in his stormy eyes. "Wanna be inside me, _sir_?" 

"Fuck. _Yes_." Erwin groaned, watching Levi remove his fingers from himself-- his lashes fluttering again. It was quickly becoming one of his favorite things to see. 

Levi oriented himself, kneeling on either side of Erwin's thighs. His hands were resting on the edges of his stomach. Eyes shut, the outlaw reached back and took hold of the other's length and lined it up with his entrance, wiggling his hips in a charmingly indignified way. Erwin didn't have to suppress a laugh, though. Levi dropped his ass against Erwin's thighs, pulling him inside with a swiftness that assured the sheriff this was not the first time he'd done it. 

Surrounded by hot, tight pleasure, arms helplessly thrown apart, Erwin's body shook with the effort not to scream or fight. Levi's concern for his silence seemed to have lapsed, as he rolled his hips forward roughly, moving in an upward arc before crashing back down. Though it was all _so_ good, it was in degrees: the sharpest, most intense pleasure building at the edge of Levi's grinding motions, the receding touch eliciting an all-over tremble as Erwin tried not to chase the feeling with his loose hips. 

"How's- that-?" Levi squeezed the inside of Erwin's elbows and shifted his weight onto his arms. He switched from his circular arc to a shameless bounce, watching the man below him with an exhausted, debauched, desperate expression. 

"So good, oh--" Erwin squeezed his eyes shut, choking on his words. "It's perfect, Levi." 

"Keep… stay. Stay right there." Levi fixed him with a cold, steely eye and kept going, faster; he dug his nails into Erwin's collarbone and drove himself harder against his cock, shuddering gasps leaving his mouth with each pass. Assuming he meant not to finish, Erwin rocked up against him experimentally. 

"Oh… _oh_ …. Erwin…" Levi's head dropped but his pace remained steady. Gritting his teeth against the building pleasure, the blond continued to push his hips up when Levi brought his down. The effect it had was satisfying enough. Levi looked like he was going to pieces, throwing his small body fervently down against Erwin's larger frame. 

"Ah… ah…" he was gasping, slowly getting quicker and quicker, "ah… ah-- ah-- ah-- oh! ah, ah, ah!" Erwin had the sense he'd struck gold. Wrapping his fingers around his wrist restraints for leverage, he pulled his body up and fucked the same spot, hard as he could. Levi tangled his hands in the sheets and sat down on his thighs heavily, letting him do the work. The litany of gasps didn't stop, now moans so high-pitched they were nearly silent-- these Levi hid behind his hand, but he couldn't hide the reaction of his body. As Erwin rolled up, Levi's cock twitched and shuddered. His body clenched around Erwin, and like a poem about lovers they both lost themselves in ecstasy at the same time. 

The ropes undoing, however-many minutes later. Levi kissed his wrists.

Erwin stretching his arms and hissing in pain-pleasure as Levi pulled off of him, and then the sheets coming down around them both. The nighttime was at its heaviest, and for what would only be this moment, Erwin felt certain he had done something right. 

"Like this, Erwin." Levi pulling his arm over his shoulder and pressed his back to his chest, nestling his head beneath his chin. "Two spoons in a drawer." 

"Two spoons…" Erwin smiling above Levi's head and held him close. They looked more like a river and a bank, the way silver-blue water slides warmly against the rich, eroding ground. 

It might go without saying, he slept very well that night.


	5. high noon

A golden sun was coming up over the hills and Hanji was, naturally, up to enjoy it before she went around to the sheriff's office. She was sat sidesaddle, smoking beneath the brim of her owl-brown hat. It was this kind of sight that helped her feel a little more alright in Paredmaria-- a town far too small for her aspirations. Of course, she wasn't interested in going back east. A metropolis offered hundreds of possibilities… but also hundreds of people. No, the deputy was interested in California, that place of gold and water. 

But watching the sunrise over the red and orange rocks, turning it bloody and sweet and hungry and glowing all at once, was a sight she wasn't sure she could get way out west. This was good enough, she thought, pulling on her smoke hard enough to make the embers at the end of her cigarette rush towards her fingers like a stream. 

Yes. Good enough. Hanji flicked the damp tobacco and paper onto the ground and turned her horse to head back into town.

Erwin fixed an ornate gemstone tie beneath the ripe apple of his collared throat, watching the familiar gesture in his bathroom mirror. His neck prickled, as tell-tale gray eyes loomed past his shoulder. Had he ever been observed so closely by a lover before? Especially during this routine, the simple act of dressing-- turning to look at Levi's naked body on the bed, wrapped pleasingly in Erwin's sheets-- he felt a rush of possessive, surprising arousal at the affectionate gaze. The fixation within them-- the subsequent knowledge that this was not how Levi regarded just anyone. 

Their passion only seemed capable of compounding, each breath turning to a name, names turning into indulgent, explorative touches, turning to heavy, sweet breaths. And it would begin again. It was only during a moment of rare exhaustion on Levi's part that Erwin had been able to rise and clothe himself, but the act was already being rendered null by the Raven's determined gaze.

Otherwise they may have been more aware of the sound of approaching hooves, as excited in pace as their master's temperment. 

Erwin crossed the room to embrace Levi, bending over the bed and wrapping his arms around his narrow shoulders. The smaller's fingers curled against Erwin's chest. He thought he might feel anything this man did to him, no matter how minute, whether it was the touch of his gunslinging fingers or a graze from his cold eyes. Head swimming, the sheriff took him in for a deep kiss. Levi's body seemed to melt against his with a long, sweet sigh. 

"Hot damn, Sheriff!" 

Erwin's eyes snapped towards the window to his kitchen, where Hanji's mouth hung open in a shocked smile, her eyes wide, like she'd come across a herd of buffalo. 

"Fuck," the wanted man pulled away from the lawman before he could stop him, seizing his gun and pulling the hammer back with the flat of one hand, his opposing fingers already on the trigger. 

Hanji's arms shot up in the air like cacti searching for dew. 

"Levi," Erwin straightened up stiffly and caught his lover's attention with a hard look, "my deputy ain't a threat. If you're fixin' to murder her you'll have to go through me." Levi looked between the two of them, weighing the brunette with his eyes, before he finally lowered the barrel of his gun. 

"Well don't stand out there all day, Deputy Zoe," he said mildly, nodding towards the door. 

Once Hanji entered and Erwin made coffee for the three of them, she quickly pieced together the series of events that had occurred without her: that the two men were in love, that Erwin had allowed Levi to leave, but then she added something that had not even crossed Erwin's mind. 

"That wild mare that's been keeping the posse busy-- she's your horse, isn't she?" The lanky young woman blew the steam from her mug. "Goddamn, I was planning on trying to lasso her myself today. Don't ask him but I'm a faster rider than your beau over there," she jerked her thumb towards Erwin. To his surprise, Levi smiled-- if only for a second. 

"Yes, she is. I figured she'd put up enough of a fight to stall those no-good sons of bitches-- shit, she barely lets _me _ride her." He held his cup to his lips by the tips of his fingers, letting the steam waft into his palm. "Are they through trying?"__

__"Sure as shit they are! Came back exhausted as all hell-- say, that the Sheriff's old horse I saw out there? Good of you to return ol' Rose."_ _

__Erwin glanced out the window and saw, indeed, the fugitive's horse had been returned to her post. Levi hummed thoughtfully. "It'll be tricky to get out of town without being spotted. Might not make it far enough."_ _

__Of course he was going to leave again. The sheriff wondered how he'd managed to forget that._ _

__Hanji nodded, narrowing her eyes. Her spectacles glinted in the morning light. "Say… couldn't you lie low for a day? We head out at night?"_ _

__"We?" Erwin raised his eyebrows,_ _

__She nodded again, much more excitedly. "Course! You and the Sheriff share a horse, I take mine and we get that jet black mare back."_ _

__It seemed Hanji was taking it for granted that Erwin was going to join Levi at his next destination-- which although not an unfamiliar thought to the sheriff, he hadn't seriously considered what it would be like to abandon his post and go on the run with this cunning outlaw._ _

__Levi began to respond, only to be interrupted by a sharp knock at the door. Ice plunged into Erwin's chest as he heard the sound of Zeke's voice through the wood, too calm, too even, not like comforting a dying animal, like killing one. "Sheriff Smith? I see your horse is back."_ _

__Silence. Erwin stood up from the table and cleared his throat. "And good morning to you, Ezekiel."_ _

__Had he locked the door again when they let Hanji in? What if this facade of pleasantries was finally over, and the man was on the verge of breaking and entering, gun drawn? Levi seemed to mirror Erwin's thoughts. For the second time that morning he picked up his holster and put his weapons on his hands; where before the sheriff might've found it distasteful that the smaller man's instincts were to take violent action, having seen him so vulnerable, naked, loving-- he understood that this was how Levi demonstrated his tenderness._ _

__Maybe he was deluding himself._ _

__"Let's stop playing games, Sheriff." Zeke's voice was still cold and calm. A lake icy enough to walk across._ _

__"What do you mean?" Erwin matched the man's tone, steady, surefire. Hanji stayed stockstill, then realizing that none of them had faced the window at the table. He could have easily seen Levi while walking up. How much did he know, exactly?_ _

__The three of them heard a soft chuckle in response._ _

__"Let me see Mr. Ackerman, Sheriff. You're clearly not in your right mind to deal with a fugitive."_ _

__Erwin's eyes flitted to a stone-faced Levi, and before he could say a word, the man rose to his feet and cleared his throat._ _

__"You think you can outshoot me?"_ _

__There was a beat of silence._ _

__"Only one way to tell, Raven." His voice was lower now, some of his composure slipping to reveal a barren rage._ _

__Levi dragged his holster on. "You've got until noon. This town ain't big enough for the two of us."_ _

__Zeke chuckled again. "I couldn't agree more."_ _

__

__The wind whistled through the creaking wooden buildings, the weight of the observers not much louder. They lined the streets, hungry-eyed: no hangings, no criminals, Paredmaria wanted violence. And they would get it._ _

__Zeke stood slouched against the barrister of the saloon, his pale eyes quick as water beneath the brim of his ice white hat. The sun was almost at high noon. In the sweltering Nevada heat, a few of the fairer attendants looked for refuge in the saloon. They watched from the windows over foaming glass steins, not a word exchanged._ _

__In the sheriff's office, Erwin was pacing before the jail cell. He'd been trying to talk Levi out of the challenge for the better part of the morning, and, his arguments exhausted, faced the smaller man with his eyes shining._ _

__Levi looked at him just as readily from his crooked seat at Erwin's desk._ _

__"I'll be fine," Levi told him once again, wrapping his hand around his larger knuckles._ _

__Hanji shouldered inside smelling like tobacco and dust. "Everyone's waiting," she said. Erwin noticed, and appreciated, that she tried to keep the glee from her voice. A shootout in her own little town! He regarded his lover and nodded once, stiffly._ _

__He had resolved to lose him, if he did, with dignity._ _

__Levi tilted his chin up, a sign Erwin had already learned meant to kiss him-- and he did, draping his arms around his frame and pressing their lips together with enough depth and passion as to encompass the years that they might never spend together._ _

__And then the outlaw, dressed head to toe in black, stepped past Hanji onto the street and met Zeke's eyes._ _

__The two strode across the dusty road to meet beneath the zenith of the sun. Noon. The beginning of the day's worst heat. The time of hot tempers and bloody duels. Erwin watched from the door of his office._ _

__"He's supposed to be the quickest this side of the Hudson," Hanji tried to reassure him, but the man's fists were clenched so firmly his knuckles were the color of the moon._ _

__The two men faced each other and spoke briefly. Ten paces, turn and shoot. It was neither of their's first rodeo._ _

__One. They both turned their backs on the other._ _

__Two. Levi's steps were languid strides._ _

__Three. Zeke's were clipped, stiff._ _

__Four, five. They were going too fast. Erwin felt like he couldn't breathe._ _

__Six. The sun was like an eye in the skull of cattle, bleaching in the sun._ _

__Seven. What was that?_ _

__Eight. Zeke's fingers were twitching._ _

__Nine. Erwin's mouth opened to call a warning-- his opponent was turning early!_ _

___Ten _. A gun went off. For a second, it was unclear who had shot: both men stood with their guns drawn, but only Levi's eyes had that shining clarity of _life _.____ _ _

______A red wound, the shape of the sun, appeared from the sky of Zeke's forehead. His fingers trembled on his unshot weapon and then, timber! and he pitched forward onto the ground._ _ _ _ _ _

______There was an uproar from the crowd. When the dust finally settled around Zeke's body, the townspeople were pushing past one another to get to Levi._ _ _ _ _ _

______But not before Erwin._ _ _ _ _ _

______The sheriff, or perhaps _ex _-sheriff, had thrown himself up on his newly returned horse, his expression hard as nails. Determination surged in his veins.___ _ _ _ _ _

________Levi felt a hand on the back of his cloak and gasped as he was pulled up onto Erwin's saddle. Hanji had gotten the message and was already at her steed's side-- and as the crowd turned into a mob, Erwin drove his horse mean and fast out of town._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________Levi was out of breath but through his chest, Erwin could feel each beat of his heart. Though they had no time to savor it, no time for gratitude, he drew each of his ragged riding breaths with a renewed vigor and ambition. Zeke was dead. They had a lead on the posse. And most importantly, Erwin thought as the horse's hooves turned to a twister beneath its lean body, Levi was still alive._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _


	6. epilogue

Erwin was drinking it in: 

The sunlight off the snow, the crispness of the air, the spice of tobacco. On a morning like this, he even considered adding a dash of bourbon to his coffee. Everything was arranged-- a symphony, choir chairs. One longed to sit back and pull it into the space beneath his bare chest. 

Though he had been plenty strong in Nevada, the intensive routine of homesteading had given his muscles stony qualities. He felt the cold just as sharp as he had the first day in the mountains, when the combination of their coats whipping around them wildly and the clatter of icy sheets of rain had first put the word _wilderness_ on their tongues. But he bore it. Like adjusting to a heavy pack Erwin shouldered the mountain cold after a month or two. Now it felt good. Easy. 

It was rare for them to be able to settle down like this. Deep in the mountains, where snow and wind swirled mere miles from sunny summer days in the foothills, their cabin was practically nonexistent: another embankment of snow among dozens just like it, surrounded by more pine trees than people. Hanji was their only visitor, arriving with supplies and stories every few months. Levi hunted for what they couldn't get otherwise, but after a year of sticking in the same spot they'd amassed an impressive store. Enough to make it through this winter and the next. 

He was restless. 

Not Erwin; he had always been a man for resting when it was appropriate. And this little plot of land suited him; they could grow things for a little less than half a year, could ride for miles and never take the same path twice. He was, for the first time in his life, permitted to sleep with someone he loved. 

Maybe it was because Levi _had _this before, with his husband, the one who passed on. The two of them had never even spoken of whether or not they were _spousal _or merely romantic…____

____But as of late, the notorious outlaw had been secretive. Erwin had seen enough to make that judgment without fear of paranoia: Levi had spoken to his former Deputy in hushed tones, taken rides alone late at night, and this week-- after much note-scratching on paper ( _"Nothing to worry about, Sheriff," _Erwin's old title still twisting a sweet, wry note in his heart)-- told him he was going into town-- no more detail, no less.___ _ _ _

______Town-- two years ago this word had no sinister connotations. After they made their break for it, the ex-sheriff and his man on the run had gone from place to place, robbing when they needed it, killing when they had to, and always staying close together. One white and dappled horse, one black: one tall and statuesque with his hair catching the sun beneath the brim of a faded hat, the other sharp and stormy, holding his devil's eyes with poise._ _ _ _ _ _

______No one bothered the pair, and if they did, they met their end as sure as the sun kept setting._ _ _ _ _ _

______And then the word spread that the Raven had taken someone beneath his wing, in a manner of speaking. Erwin's likeness appeared astride his lover's and another word gained new, dark meaning: _wanted_. _ _ _ _ _ _

______Then they had to be careful. No more towns. Now Levi found them hideouts, shelter, now they made camp under the stars. Fewer stops, longer rides. Erwin had considered this. An eventuality for all who turned their backs on the law: that as the states pushed westward and southward, as the dominant society gorged itself on the land and her people, the law became harder and harder to avoid. Freedom, which Levi had always prized and Erwin had always yearned for, was slipping through their fingers, and _yet_ Erwin couldn't remember being happier. It was like the delirious joy of the last fourth of a book when the end was in sight, when one knew that the story was coming to an end, and every word became savory. _ _ _ _ _ _

______Every moment with Levi was perfect. Even when they had nothing, his hand found its way into his._ _ _ _ _ _

______And then, in the spring, like the gates of Heaven, the mountains rose up before their horses, sweet with pine and full of game. It had allowed them to stave off fate for some months now, concealed behind the thick trees and heavy snows. But-- Erwin couldn't help but wonder how long it was going to last._ _ _ _ _ _

______ _ _ _ _

______On this wintry, still day, standing outside, he almost found himself thinking that this was it and Levi wasn't going to come back. But like a mountain goat balancing on the apex of a precarious rock, Erwin called himself back: Levi did nothing poorly, even saying goodbye. In the time that they had been together he'd learned that much, that no matter how many nights he spent waiting for the outlaw, he would have a dozen more locked in passion and warm with company._ _ _ _ _ _

______As if he had called him just by missing him so sorely, Erwin's heart rose as he saw the silhouette of a black rider whipping up the snow over the horizon. He was far off, but there was no mistaking that figure. No one else was that fast._ _ _ _ _ _

______Erwin's smile could melt ice. He turned inside to make coffee for two._ _ _ _ _ _

______ _ _ _ _

______Levi dropped from his horse and shook off his coat, puffing from the cold. His nose and cheeks candy red, his handkerchief pulled up around his chin and neck, he was lacking the dignity of warm weather. But it couldn't be helped. Once he had made this decision, he had been distracted by any other thought; and though he had never turned away Erwin's affection, nor received any less of it, Levi was conscious of the distance between them and he was determined not to let it go on._ _ _ _ _ _

______The door of the cabin clattered open. Erwin poured coffee without looking over his shoulder. He was listening to the sound of Levi stomping the snow off his boots, relishing it: Levi coming home. "Mornin', Levi. Float a horseshoe?" Erwin raised the pot with one hand, looking down at the black, steaming surface of his own mug as he stirred in his sugar. Levi had once told him that was how the buildings looked in some places in Virginia, like goddamn sugar cubes._ _ _ _ _ _

______Suddenly, Erwin felt arms loop around his waist and a cool-to-the-touch forehead lean against the middle of his back._ _ _ _ _ _

______"You smell sweet, darlin'." His voice was muffled by Erwin's skin; the breath against his spine made him arch his back slightly, blue eyes flying open with pleasant surprise._ _ _ _ _ _

______"How's that?" he asked and wrapped his fingers around Levi's forearm to steady himself._ _ _ _ _ _

______"Smells like home." Levi kissed one button of Erwin's vertebrae and withdrew, hands sliding to his hips. He urged him to turn and the taller obliged. He leaned back against the counter and slotted a leg through Levi's thighs, setting his hands on his shoulders. His face grew momentarily serious._ _ _ _ _ _

______"Where were you?"_ _ _ _ _ _

______Levi hesitated. "With Hanji. We struck up a deal."_ _ _ _ _ _

______Erwin folded his brow. "She was headed back west a month ago."_ _ _ _ _ _

______"I wrote her to come back. I... " Levi took a step back, at a rare loss for words. Then, his coat fell open and Erwin noticed something strange._ _ _ _ _ _

______"Where're your sixshooters?"_ _ _ _ _ _

______Levi looked up and shut his eyes. "I passed them on to her. I asked her to call herself the… Riviera Raven. As long as she's going out west, they aren't likely to have posters of me-- I've only made it as far as Utah. So maybe they have a few rumors here and there, Hanji can make a name for herself, way she wants to, and when word gets out _here _that the Raven's moved to California, they'll stop looking for us."  
He squeezed Erwin's thighs, just above his knees, and watched his face as he processed this information. "Does that mean…" ___ _ _ _ _ _

________Levi nodded and smiled at him, almost sheepishly, as if hanging up his guns was no different than offering someone he was sweet on a flower and hoping they liked it. "I'm all yours, Sheriff." His voice still sent shivers down Erwin's spine. Everything-- everything about him had aged handsomely during this time, from his slight stubble to his tender and protective heart. Though he knew him well now, was no longer wading the depths of his exterior, Erwin never stopped falling for him. He fell for him that morning when he saw him on approach, and he fell for him again then, gathering the smaller into a fierce, firm hug._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________His chin dug into Erwin's collarbone and having him so close, the former sheriff could not resist bringing their lips together. The embrace deepened. Levi's cold, damp chest pressed against Erwin's bare skin, driving goosebumps and shivers through them both. "I mean it, Erwin. I'd do anything for you," Levi said around the kiss. Erwin gripped the back of his head; Levi moaned against his mouth. His grip on Levi's coffee-black hair had a practiced strength to it. Not too much, not too little._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________Erwin pulled back to admire his lover._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________"I couldn't ask for anything more," he said eventually, emotional trembling on the edge of his words._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________But Levi didn't let it linger. He arched an eyebrow and smoothed his hands down Erwin's chest. "No? _Nothing _?"___ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

__________Erwin rolled his eyes back and squeezed Levi's bicep. "If you pressed me, I might," his breath hitched, Levi's fingers dropping down to his stomach, "I could ask-- for a few things."_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

__________The ex-outlaw looked up at the strong, handsome man between his legs and could not keep the smirk off his face. "Name 'em."_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

__________"Christ, Levi…" Erwin cupped the back of his neck. "I'd like you to kiss me…" True to his word, Levi leaned heavily against the blond and planted his lips and tongue on his throat. He kissed his skin, savoring Erwin's throaty, faint gasp of pleasure-- which he had long stopped trying to suppress. Levi continued to press hard, wet kisses to the bottom of his jaw, palms kneading the skin of his hips. Erwin's breath hiked and he tightened his grip on Levi's arm and neck._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

__________"... hell, just come here," he pulled him off his feet by the backs of his thighs admiring the way his partner pressed responsively against his muscular arms, rolling his shoulders back and squeezing his legs between his knees. They kissed, and kissed again; and by the time all the snow had melted into rivers full of gold and all the singing dollops of baby birds were born and flying and the trees had lost haystacks worth of pine needles and a thousand different shapes and colors of cloud had rushed over their heads, they were still kissing._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

__________Outside, it was still only that day: their horses kicked, paced, and whinnied, the trees rustled, and the snow remained heavy on the ground. Later, they would emerge with shining eyes and ride through the night, laughing and yelling like young boys, and they would sleep soundly. And yet it is true that they remained like this, together, close and warm and certain in each other, for years, and years, and years._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you all for reading and liking and commenting! this has been such a treat to write and its bittersweet to see these guys off. i recommend listening to some of these cowboy songs to help you say goodbye :)
> 
> Cowpoke - Eddy Arnold 
> 
> Kisses Sweeter Than Wine - Pete Seeger 
> 
> Gay Thoughts - The Growlers
> 
> Outlaw - Sarah Shook & the Devil
> 
> Wanted Man - Frankie Laine
> 
> The Master's Call - Marty Robbins


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